Feature: Do Not Return List

Project: Healthcare Temp Staffing Management System

Business Problem

In the healthcare temporary, or contingency, staffing field, hiring the right staff can literally be a matter of life or death. Employers need to ensure that temporary staff that are not a good fit are not hired again.

The reasons for “Do Not Return” range from lacking appropriate training or certification to serious ethical, safety, or legal violations. Employers need flexibility when indicating that they do not want a specific individual to work at their facility or specific units, appropriate to the situation.

Solution

The solution would need to provide options for

Time limited ban v. permanent ban

Ban from an entire facility v. ban from selected units

Record reasons for blocking return

We also needed to ensure that when a person is banned from working at a given healthcare facility, that person is uniquely identified and not conflated with someone with an identical name.

ShiftWise favors providing information for users to make their own decisions, rather than blocking them from taking specific actions. Being listed as “Do Not Return” will not prevent a staff from being applied to a job, but it will alert the prospective employer.

Role

I designed the necessary screens and specified system behavior, and worked with developers as they implemented the feature.

Product management prioritization and adherence to the principle of MVP meant that some functionality, such as filtering, would be put off for a later iteration.

UX Artifacts

Use case diagram for developers

My developers told me they found use case diagrams useful. I find it a helpful activity to break down the functionality needed and assign each piece of functionality to the responsible party, including the system itself.

Do Not Return List

Wireframe for developers

Final screen

Do Not Return entry

The ability to see “sensitive identifying information” is controlled by a permission applied to roles. Clients can choose what identifying information, such as SSN or a different unique identifier, to identify each staff, through configuration. This is not hard-coded in the system. A unique identifier is necessary to prevent a ban on a given “John Smith” being applied to all persons named “John Smith.”

Wireframe for developers

Final screen

Do Not Return indicator on Job Applicants list

I made that indicator big and ugly and impossible to miss.

Indication that a staff is on the Do Not Return list is visible to a prospective employer, after the staff is applied to a job. Staffing agencies are not aware that one of their staff has been placed on a facility’s Do Not Return, unless the prospective employer specifically informs them. This was a deliberate decision to avoid possible bias and consequential legal liability in applying staff to jobs at other employers where the staff is not prohibited from working.